a copy inherits its parent's name

Building a machine from an existing image is the cheapest way to add capacity, and it silently copies identity along with the operating system. One member joined the group carrying the identifier of a machine that was already a member. The registry could not tell the two apart, and the interesting part is not the fix — clear the inherited state, let the newcomer mint its own identity — but that nothing looked wrong while it was happening. Both machines were healthy. One of them was claiming to be the other.

Renaming is the same problem in reverse. Every credential a machine holds was issued to a name, so the moment the name changes, the machine becomes a stranger to everything that trusted the old string. The host looks fine, its services are up, and every proxy that expected it fails a handshake for reasons that have nothing to do with the host at all.

So identity is minted at first boot, per machine, and never copied. A rename is treated as a revocation event with a schedule: credentials reissued, memberships re-established, old identity retired, in that order. It is more work than editing a name in a form, and it is the difference between a fleet and a collection of machines with similar paperwork.

What this proves is that a machine's name is a credential here, not a label — and a substrate that knows the difference can be rebuilt without surprises.